Mr. Jefferson's Lost Cause: Land, Farmers, Slavery, and the Louisiana Purchase

The truth comes out sooner or later, we hope. Here the record speaks for itself, deflating the strains of Yankee Doodle with some 'historical materialist' analysis of the facts of the case re the schizophrenia of our revered founder, Tom Jefferson, a man of fine words and a spastic record on the issue of slavery. 'What might have been' competes with the indictment of the lost opportunity to prevent the spread of the plantation system into the new territories of the emerging American system, especially in the wake of the Louisiana Purchase. Between the Declaration and the Gettysberg Address we find too much American history sawdust. Excellent piece of research behind the myth machines operating on a July Fourth schedule, 'whole cloth', like the commodity of empire in the British cotton kingdom that rapidly survived the blunder of losing its fiefdom in the soon reconquered South. Yeoman farmers? Come on. My leg is pulled out of joint.

I found this book fascinating on many counts. First, the description of how the plantations east of the Allegheny Mountains were viewed as disposable by the men who ran them, since it was cheaper to buy new land on the frontier than properly maintain the land they currently possessed. Also, how these same men for various reasons and led by Jefferson resisted the industrialization that would diversified the economy of the south.Second, how Jefferson and his allies catered to the land gluttony displayed by those early planters as new land was acquired for the United States. This was largely accomplished by dispossessing the people inconveniently already settling the land, and handing large swathes of land over to slave-holding planters emigrating from the lands they had exhausted.Kennedy in fact dwells for much of the book on the territory of Florida (expanding beyond the current borders of that state across much of the South) possessed by Spain and settled prior to US acquisition by a mixture of Indians, whites and blacks who out of neccessity practiced sustainable agriculture on a small scale. I found the picture of Florida in that period to be one of the particularly interesting parts of the book. The relationship between the US and the people already settled on lands it wished to acquire (especially Indians), using Florida as a case study, was enlightening.Kennedy provides some critical information for evaluating Jefferson's political leadership on the most compelling moral issue facing the young republic-the endurance and expansion of slavery within its boundaries. First, although the debate in Congress during his presidency over the expansion of slavery into new territories was very close, Jefferson refrained from using his influence to lead in this controversy. Thus, his anti-slavery rhetoric was saved for moments in his life (early and late in his career) when it was unlikely to influence policy, and perhaps as no coincidence his self-interest and the interest of his landed friends. Indeed, once Jefferson's agriculturally impoverished land would no longer yield a profit, rather than join other planters heading west, he decided he could support himself most easily by breeding slaves to be sold to those emigrants. In this way, the man who despised the merchant and industrial classes for their supposed lack of moral character, supported his own extravagent lifestyle. In this, as on many other issues, Jefferson was an impressively self-indulgent hypocrite. Sadly, this supposedly great president was striking for his lack of will and vision on how best to establish a republic in which the AVERAGE citizen would have a reasonable opportunity to pursue happiness. I would have liked to have given this book 4 1/2 stars, because there was a certain lack of organization, and some parts were confusing, so I can't say it was perfectly written. But I found the subject matter truly eye-opening and heartily recommend it to anyone interested in th

This book had strong content and very weird organization.On the plus side: Kennedy puts together a commanding set of facts to show that while Jefferson's words rang strong and true, the man himself was hamstrung by his allegiance to his class and could not affect any change regarding slavery in America.One reviewer called Kennedy's work a Marxist critique of southern history. I would argue precisely the opposite. The "lost cause" of the title was the idea that yeoman farmers, tending their own farms for their own benefit would lead to a strong, engaged and committed citizenry. This was originally a Roman idea shared by men such as Adam Smith, James Oglethorpe, George Washington and Alexander Hamilton. This practice was in place in the Northern colonies and later the Northwest Territory, and led to economic development and economic independence from Great Britain, industrialization, wealthy citizens and a diversified economy.In the South, the plantation system meant large farms run by absentee landlords who exploited and ruined the soil, enslaved and robbed people of self-initiative (those people being the slaves), stifled diversification (all hail King Cotton), discouraged industrialization, and prolonged dependence and subservience to textile manufacturers in Liverpool and Manchester. Since the people actually working the land did not have a stake in it, or in the care of the tools they used, the factors of economic production - capital, land, tools and labor -all were "run into the ground." The lasting effect of the plantation system - low wages, demoralized citizens lacking entrepreneurial spirit, ruined tools, ruined fields, death and suffering - strongly parallel the effects of 60+ years of Communism in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, and before that the effects of British absentee ownership of Ireland. Indeed only in the past couple decades, a full century after the fall of the plantation system, is the South now reviving with manufacturing, entrepreneurship and economic diversification. Post Communist Eastern Europe has strong resemblances to the Reconstruction South.Therefore, if anything, Kennedy's book affirms the social, moral and economic benefits of the Capitalist market system of small time farmers and business owners over the ruin that stems from collectivization of any sort - Communist or Plantation.The rest of the book is a wonderful excursion through the history of the deep South. This is what I enjoyed about the book.On the negative side: the book needs a new title, the current one is misleading. The book is not really about the Louisiana purchase as much as it is about how Jefferson, Madison, Monroe and their cohorts lead the nation down a path to a condition that would only be rectified with much bloodshed in the 1860s. The book needs better organization (this is the worst organized book I've ever encountered). It needs a new appendix. The book mentions Aaron Burr and his doings, trial, conspiracy

Roger Kennedy has written a great book. Thomas Jefferson's Cause was truly lost because the planters and slavers whom he represented continued to use up people and land until they were stopped at the Civil War. Thus the internal contradiction of the plantation system worked itself out. Hopefully, others will pick up where Kennedy left off, and continue to trace the strain (or stain) of the users up to the present day. Just as slave owners used slaves in labor and other ways, they also used up the land in a grossly wasteful way. We see their ilk with us today in the oil industry, the lumber industry, and in the political helpers of the inheritors of the tradition of the planters and slavers. These are the ones who use things and people up, and then move on to greener pastures where they can continue their destructive ways.

Don't believe reviewers who rachet this book down on grounds of its being "revisionist history." Sometimes the truth hurts, especially when one of the Founding Fathers is shown to have, at the least, feet of clay. If you are willing to accept heroes with feet of clay, or even see them toppled from pedestals, don't flinch from this book. More than any other early president except Washington, Thomas Jefferson had a large moral bankroll to spend. And yet, he consistently and repeatedly kept his wad of cash in his pocket on the slavery issue. Author Robert Kennedy documents several points in early American history -- namely, in the first few years of independence (more at the Virginia level than nationally), in dealing with the settlement of the trans-Appalachian west, with the aquisition and settlement of the Old Southwest, and finally with the Lousiana Purchase -- where Jefferson could have at least checked the spread of slavery. But he did not. In fact, many of his actions at these points in time actually promoted the growth of slavery. Kennedy details his connection to freebooting expeditions against Spanish Florida and his connection to unsavory characters such as Gen. James Wilkenson, along with his aching desire to be liked and accepted by fellow members of his planter class, as background to this. Jefferson is not being scored for not being an abolitionist. Rather, the idealistic author of the Declaration of Independence is being faulted for not even lifting a moral finger, let alone a whole hand. Kennedy also includes discussions on matters such as Southern cotton and tobacco monocrop soil depletion as part of the price of Mr. Jefferson's lost cause. Though some would fault this as revisionist history, they can't attack Kennedy's credentials, as he is both former director of the National Park Service and director emeritus of the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History. That said, this book is not perfect. I had three major editorial dislikes. One is explanatory endnotes. Endnotes are fine for citations, but I feel explanatory material should either be in footnotes or worked into the body of the text. The second is the relative lack of maps, primarily for the Gulf Coast, to illustrate the provenance of some of the freebooting. The third is a desire for more charts and other illustrative material for information such as soil depletion, if applicable. That said, this is a must read.